musings from near and far--on knitting, spinning, books, and some very unique medical diagnoses

Sunday, October 23, 2016

I don't look up

I'm knitting, I'm reading, I'm scrolling on my phone. Someone talks to me, someone important to me, my husband, one of my children. I don't look up. I murmur responses while focussing on what I was already doing. If I do look up at all, I don't make eye contact; I gaze to the side of the head of someone I love.

I don't mean to be disengaged. I don't mean to be rude. I don't mean to be dismissive. I don't mean to not value the interaction. I don't mean to be self-involved. I don't mean to not seem to care.

I can't risk being distracted of my focus. If my mind isn't totally focussed on what I've shoved into it, the knitting stitches, the words on the page, the images on the phone, the thoughts shove their way in.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, if my mind isn't focussed, the thoughts are there. The thoughts deciding which would be the best way to die by suicide. Which would be the most pain-free, the least troublesome, the most accessible. The only way I can stop them, turn them off, shut them down, is to never let them in so much as a crack. The second I don't fill my head with ordered thoughts, those chaotic, destructive, and ever-tempting ones make their way right in.

I love you. I don't ever want you to think I don't care about you, that I value meaningless knitting or books or social media even nearly as much as I value you. I can barely hold on here though, and it's showing in these difficult, dissociative ways.

2 comments:

You are describing me. I am always afraid that my family will not know how much I love them, because my coping mechanisms are so isolating. I know it won't keep my anxiety and depression at bay, and it's kind of selfish and weird, but it's a relief to read someone else's thoughts and feelings that are so much like my own. Thank you for sharing your self with the rest of us. I came here from a link on a knitter's blog looking for some more knitting goodness, which I have found, but I think I've also been led to a kindred spirit. I don't know anyone who has described myself to me the way you have just by telling the truth about yourself. You are a gifted writer. I wish for your sake that your subject wasn't so agonizing. I would do anything to take your pain away, if I could, because I know firsthand how deep and debilitating it is. Finding you is one of the best things that has happened to me for awhile. You will be on my heart from now on.